Disaster Preparedness

A Memoir

By Heather Havrilesky

(Riverhead Books; 239 pages; $25.95)

Growing up in 1970s Durham, N.C., Heather Havrilesky was obsessed with the possibility of cataclysmic disaster. Everywhere she turned, she saw the world coming to an unhappy end. As she reflects in the opening of her aptly titled memoir, "Disaster Preparedness":

"On every movie screen, airplanes plummeted to the ground, earthquakes toppled huge cities, and monster sharks ripped teenagers to bloody bits. But more disturbing than the catastrophes themselves was the utter lack of foresight demonstrated by the adults in each harrowing scene. As meteors hurled toward Earth and gigantic dinosaurs crushed cars under their feet, grown adults either ran screaming or stood in confused clusters, gasping and shrugging over what was to be done."

Havrilesky, a onetime San Francisco resident, honed her chatty, sometimes stream-of-consciousness style in nearly 10 years of writing the Rabbit Blog. (She has also contributed to pioneering online magazines Suck.com and Salon, and recently joined the newly unveiled iPad-only newspaper the Daily.)

Although labeled a memoir, her debut book is more a loosely connected series of autobiographical essays. Each chapter takes a nominal theme - losing her virginity, trying out as a cheerleader, boxing with her father - then quickly spins off into unexpected, and often unexpectedly entertaining, digressions. As a result, the structure is only vaguely chronological: One chapter might jump all the way to high school, for example, only for the next to backtrack to fifth grade, and pivotal events like her parents' divorce come up several times in passing before being tackled head on.

Her writing is strongest when she settles down to capture singular moments from her life, as in her chapter on grade-school heartbreak:

"The first time you fall in love, it's like throwing a party in your head and no one else is invited, a party where they play nothing but 'Don't You Forget About Me' over and over again. The actual particulars - driving to Hardee's in a beat-up yellow Pinto, your thighs sweating into the torn black upholstery of the passenger seat, your mind searching for something clever to say - aren't all that compelling. When you're with the object of your desire, it's not very enjoyable: You're paralyzed by fear."

Although billed by her publisher as "a hilarious voyage into the soul of late-twentieth century paranoia," this is largely a serious book, considerably lighter on pop-culture references and sitcom shenanigans than readers may expect. In a late chapter that begins with visiting the Johnstown Flood Museum and ends with her father's death, she observes that we "are all clinging to some uprooted tree, being hurled down the rushing river," destined to disappear and be forgotten.

But Havrilesky doesn't quite seem to know where to take these occasionally macabre pronouncements. Her attempts to synthesize a larger message out of her myriad anecdotes can feel superficial. When she surprises us by choosing a group of "upper-middle class, lily-white, privileged southern friends" on the cheerleading squad over her quirky best friend Rachel with her "bony little bird legs and knobby knees," all she can explain is that "real life is never as cleanly dissected into good guys and bad guys."

Reflecting on her difficult but meaningful relationship with her mother simply leaves her thinking "how lucky we are." And by the final chapter, when Havrilesky declares that she's "not worried about impending disasters anymore," we can't quite tell if she's become one of those same helpless adults she disparaged as a child, or has achieved some separate peace.

Taken in small doses, "Disaster Preparedness" can be a thoroughly enjoyable exploration of one woman's experience dodging disasters real and imaginary, growing up in the age of the Iran hostage crisis and "Invasion of the Body Snatchers." Like so many of her contemporaries writing online, Havrilesky is unafraid to guide us through her most intimate memories of childhood, motherhood and everything in between. Think of her book as a particularly well-crafted blog, and one that you can even read by candlelight, when the Big One strikes and the power goes out.